NEWARK, N.J.—As a defenseman in the NHL, you have to scramble sometimes, and Darnell Nurse showed quite a bit of ability at that after the Edmonton Oilers made him the No. 7 pick in Sunday's draft.

Nurse was asked about his take-no-guff attitude on the ice, only he misheard the question as being about "techno guff," and what followed was one of the funniest exchanges of the day as the 18-year-old from Hamilton, Ontario, tried to make the best of it.

"Techno like the music?" Nurse said. "That's soft music, so I hope that doesn't mean soft. But guff, that sounds pretty tough. I think I have a little bit of jam in my game. I've always had it. Like I said, it's better to give than receive. It creates a lot more rom for yourself in the corners. Obviously, with that said, I'm going to get challenged based on the way I play, but I've never been scared to step up."

If techno doesn't fit Nurse's game as a hard-hitting, corner-digging, jam-bringing defenseman, what kind of music does?

"You put on some classical music? Maybe it would be the opposite of that," Nurse said. "Maybe hip-hop? No, rock-n-roll maybe."

Whatever the soundtrack is for Nurse's career with Edmonton, he is the perfect complementary note to the Oilers' last three first-round picks, all forwards who were picked No. 1 overall: Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Nail Yakupov.

The Oilers added another talented young player via free agency last year in defenseman Justin Schultz, but Nurse is a different kind of player, one whose impact will be measured on bruises left on opponents rather than in points on the scoresheet. That's not to say that he's without offensive talent, though: Nurse had 12 goals and 29 assists in 68 games for Sault Ste. Marie in the Ontario Hockey League last season.

Nurse may not make the immediate impact of his predecessors, as he still has some filling out to do at 6-4 and 185 pounds, but he already has the pro athlete thing down, thanks to guidance from his family. Nurse's father Richard was a wide receiver in the Canadian Football League and his uncle is former NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb, who still has the family record as the highest draft pick—No. 2 by the Philadelphia Eagles in 1999. Richard Nurse was the No. 23 pick in the 1990 CFL draft.

"He went higher than me, but I didn't get booed at my draft," Nurse said of his uncle. "So we're even."